Notes

Other 2009 shows

Here is a show with lots and lots of AT40 clips from 2003, celebrating AT40's 33-1/3rd Birthday.

Casey's last Long Distance Dedication (July 2009) Thanks to Garry 'D', KNIX/KESZ, Phoenix
Casey introducing GET USED TO IT - Roger Voudouris (May 26, 1979)
a complete broadcast of NOT THE AMERICAN TOP 40 - American Comedy Network (Labor Day, 1984)
many actual commercials from old AT40 shows (1982)
Casey playing THE SALT IN MY TEARS - Martin Briley (July 23, 1983)

Dear Casey,

I started listening to American Top 40 in late 1979 on 99X/WXLO in New York City, at the age of 11. To say it had a profound impact on my life would be an extreme understatement; within weeks of discovering AT40 and the pop charts, I gave all my baseball cards to my brother and never looked back. Thanks to the local record stores ("Please request by number") and your show, I now had 45s to collect.

Thirty years later, I am still fanatical about pop music. I dabbled in commercial radio, but they told me that if I was in it for the music, I was in it for the wrong reason. Luckily, I discovered community radio at the left end of the dial, and that's where I've been for the last 22 years. Since 1992, I've been hosting my own pop music show, which I routinely refer to as a graduate-level course in pop.

In the years before I could afford Billboard, I used to tune in to AT40 and write down the positions of the songs in a three-ring binder. That binder was my first useful chart reference, and your show was a very comforting Sunday morning ritual in my formative years.

You'd be surprised at how many DJs I've run into that did the very same thing as kids, and all of us still have those three-ring binders tucked away with our most prized possessions. I kept it up from 1979 to 1989 - from 6th grade to my junior year of college - and I've attached scans of the first and last pages from that binder. Basically, I transcribed about 20,000 songs that you introduced over that ten year span.

I know you're retiring from the countdown world this July 4th weekend, exactly 39 years after the first AT40 in 1970. I wish you the best of luck in whatever you choose to do next. Metaphorically, I hope you get to enjoy sleeping in on Sundays! You can take pride knowing that your shows have made such a lasting impression in so many of us listeners.

Sincerely,
Ron Gerber
host of "Crap From The Past"
KFAI-FM/Minneapolis